[JeffZPgh]

A few weeks ago the hard drive in my iBook 700 started making a sporadic clicking noise that I found pretty disturbing. It went on for a few weeks, until one day the click turned into the drive halting (ceasing all motion so far as I could tell) and a stream of I/O errors.

Since then, the drive isn't even detected as a valid device by the system at boot time. Booting without a CD results in the "?" folder icon, booting with an OS 9 CD and running Apple System Profiler reveals NO storage devices present aside from the cd-rom, and the machine PASSES the Apple Hardware Tests in the "mass storage" category because the tests don't seem to know there's something there to check.

So, my disk is dead as dead can be. The system's out of warranty, being about 18 months old, and I never bought AppleCare for it. I'm pretty disappointed, and I'm not sure I've got an option aside from swapping a new drive in myself (I did this procedure once in my old iBook 500, involves a lot of nervousness and eyestrain but is far from impossible).

Opinions on alternative courses of action, similar experiences with drives from that generation of iBook (I think they're Toshiba drives?), other comments?

Jeff

[engaged]

I've got a Late 2001 iBook, and I replaced the original hard drive (Fujitsu) for an IBM Travelstar running at 5400rpm with an 8MB cache - the difference in overall performance is noticeable.

It sounds like replacing the drive is your only course of action. It's not that hard, just make sure you have all the right tools, take your time and label all the screws as you remove them. Various people have posted instructions on the internet regarding the procedure.

[arclight]

There are instructions here on how to do it. I also saw one with a diagram sheet you could print out and place all the screw upon.

Sounds involved but nothing that your average user couldn't accomplish. Look at the bright side, now you can get a bigger drive!